India’s highest tunnel to see light of day next month
SHIMLA : Running three years behind schedule, the strategic 8.8-km all-weather Rohtang tunnel, the highest in the country, will open to emergency traffic in October.
Being built under the Rohtang Pass at an altitude of 13,050 feet (Shimla 7,467 ft) is in the eastern Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas on Leh-Manali highway, the horse-shoe shaped road will become fully operational by August 15, 2019. At 9.2km, the Chenani-Nashri tunnel, also known as Patnitop tunnel, linking Kashmir with Jammu on NH-44 is the country’s longest road tunnel built at a height of nearly 4,000 feet.
STRATEGIC LINK
The tunnel in Himachal Pradesh will reduce the distance of 474km between Manali and Leh, which takes six to eight hours, by 46km, reducing the travel time by two-and-a-half hours. The speed limit in the tunnel is 80kmh or 50mph.
This will help accelerate troop mobility to the strategic frontiers in J&K besides providing a road link to Lahaul and Spiti during winters.
At present, people in the tribal district are dependent on government-run helicopter services during this season. “If emergency vehicles start plying this winter, it will be a big relief. It will put an end to the harsh life people are forced to lead half the year round,” says Lahaul and Spiti legislator Ravi Thakur.
HITTING ROADBLOCKS
The tunnel’s south portal at Dhundhi and north portal at Sissu Nullah will be connected by October-end. “Only 250m of digging is left. We will work on electrical fittings and ventilation after that,” says chief engineer NM Chandrana. The project, work on which began in 2010, was to be completed in February 2015 but water ingress from Seri Nullah (a glacier-fed rivulet above the tunnel), ban on rock mining, delay in allotment of land needed for quarrying construction material, and loose rock strata in the middle led to a slowdown. In 2012, it took engineers almost a year to plug the seepage.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Engineers used the drill and blast technique for excavation as part of the New Austrian Tunneling Method. Defence road construction agency, Border Roads Organisation, is excavating the tunnel with Strabag-Afcons, a joint venture between India’s Afcons Infrastructure Ltd and Austria’s Strabag SE.
COST AND DELAY
The project’s estimated cost in 2010 was ₹1,700 crore and was revised to ₹2,000 crore in 2015. Now, the projected cost by 2019 is ₹4,000 crore.
MILESTONES
Conceived in 1998, the project was announced by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee on June 3, 2000. The work was entrusted to BRO on May 6, 2002 and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had laid the foundation stone on June 28, 2010.